“I imagine so,” I said.

“I don’t think I’ll completely relax until I bring this baby home.”

Julie reached for her hand. “I’m glad you told us. Now you have Jeff, Abby, and me to talk to.”

“Thanks.” Dena wiped a tear from her face. “Damn pregnancy hormones. Anyway, I also wanted to ask you guys if you’d stand with me at the wedding. I’m going to ask Sasha, too.”

“Yes!” Julie nearly shouted, and I hugged Dena and told her I’d be honored.

“Jeff wants to get married before the baby’s born. I told him that was fine, but I wasn’t walking down the aisle looking like a whale.”

“Oh, we’ll go wedding dress shopping,” Julie said. “All four of us.”

“It’ll have to be soon.” Dena looked over at me. “Can you go this weekend, Abby?”

I shook my head. “No, we’re starting the move this weekend. But don’t let me hold you up. You go without me.”

“We’ll see how it goes. I hate for you not to be there,” Dena said.

I hated to miss it. Wedding dress shopping was fun.

“What do your parents think about your wedding plans?” I asked.

“Mom wouldn’t care who I married as long as it meant there would be the potential for grandchildren in the future. But she’s taking her directions from Dad and he’s not speaking with me.”

I winced. “Sorry to hear that. Will they be at the wedding?”

“Only if I marry someone other than Jeff, but that’s okay.” I knew Dena’s father was a bit of snob and didn’t approve of Jeff’s working-class background. “I stopped needing their approval a long time ago. And to be honest, it’ll be better without them.”

“I’m so happy for you guys,” I said. “Everyone should be as happy as you two are.”

“I think we both finally realized we deserved happiness.”

If anyone deserved happiness, it was Jeff and Dena. They’d gone through so much to be together. But like with the journey Nathaniel and I were on, those hardships only served to make their relationship stronger.

“Okay,” Julie said. “I hate to cut this short, but I’m dying to see what Daniel has planned for tonight.”

We hugged good-bye and went our separate ways. Nathaniel was waiting at the foot of the stairs and crooked a finger at me when he saw me.

Oh yes, I couldn’t wait to see his plans.

Chapter Two

NATHANIEL

“I want you to go inside the suite and head to the bedroom,” I said when we pulled up to our hotel. “Kneel on the rug and while you wait, I want you to think about what I promised I’d do to you when we got home.”

Her sharp intake of breath left no doubt in my mind that she remembered, but just because I wanted to hear her say it, I asked, “What am I going to do when I get into the bedroom, Abigail?”

“You said you would fuck me properly, Master.”

“That’s my plan.”

She shifted her weight impatiently from side to side on the elevator ride and once I unlocked the door, I simply said, “Go.”

While she got ready, I sat on the couch and wrote out my observations of the group party. The first thing that concerned me was how lax security had seemed. There was one member working the door and one Dungeon Monitor on duty. One person at the door was enough, but it seemed to be asking a lot for one person to oversee the entire party as DM.

I tapped my pen on the notebook. What we needed was a place with video cameras so DMs could keep an eye on every room at once. And more acting DMs. Hard to get more DMs when the group itself only numbered around twenty regular attendees, with an additional fifteen or so casual members. And the only person whose house had cameras was Daniel, and even he didn’t have them installed inside. I couldn’t very well make a recommendation that a host house had to have cameras.

Things to think on another day and time. For tonight, I belonged to Abby and I was going to focus my attention and time on her.

She waited for me the way I’d requested, nude and kneeling in the middle of the floor. Her breathing was deep and even and her posture was relaxed, yet still at attention, so I knew she was waiting for me to speak.

There were no words to describe how I felt whenever I saw her waiting for me like this. Through the years, I’d tried to come up with them, but they somehow always fell short of capturing the emotion that swelled in my chest and the humility I felt at receiving her submission.

“You are amazing,” I said to her. “Absolute perfection.”

She didn’t say anything because I hadn’t given her permission to speak, but I saw her cheeks flush. Everything that was beautiful was captured in her. She would point to her breasts that weren’t as firm as they used to be since she’d had two children, or she’d mention her belly that wasn’t as perfectly flat, even though she worked out hard trying to make it so. I saw those things, too, and thought they made her even more beautiful because they were the markings of a body that had grown, nourished, and created the new life that was our children. To me, they were the badges of her love for me.

My need for her grew, and the group’s troubles left my mind. “On your back with your ass at the edge of the bed.”

She rose gracefully and moved to the bed. Her hips swayed seductively and the curve of her ass begged me to spank it. I’d have to do that later. She climbed onto the bed and got into position. When we’d checked in, she mentioned how much she liked the white bedding. Personally, I thought it was ironic—all that pure white bedding as a backdrop for all the wicked things I would do to her body.

“Touch yourself,” I told her. “Are you still wet after being flogged?”

I could see she was, but I wanted to see her finger herself. I unbuckled my pants and stepped out of them.

“Look at me,” I commanded. I fisted my cock and gave it a few pumps with my hand. “Are you wet?”

“Yes, Master.” Her voice was heavy with lust and need.

“Being tied up and flogged turned you on.”

The evidence of her arousal was slick against her upper thighs. I wanted to taste her, but feared that might push her over the edge. She’d been holding back her orgasm for over an hour by now. I moved to stand between her legs and slipped two fingers inside.

“Hell, yes. Feel that. How wet you are.”

Her lower body strained with the effort to remain still. Just that small movement showed how much she trusted me. She purposely held off letting herself orgasm because she trusted me to let her come when I knew it would bring her the most pleasure. Even now, holding still, she did it because it was what I expected and she wanted to please me. And she knew in doing so, I would please her.

I removed my fingers and brought them up to her mouth. “Suck them. Prove how much you want me. How much you want my cock.”

She took me deep inside her mouth, running her tongue around and between my fingers.

With my free hand I cupped her breast and while she gave my fingers a hard suck, I pinched her nipple. “It’s been too long since I’ve had clamps on you. I think the next weekend the kids are gone, I’m going to have you go topless all day and every so often I’ll decorate you with clamps and then have you go about your day, your breasts marked for my viewing pleasure.”

Her soft moan told me she would like that.

“Maybe I’ll have you go topless to the next group meeting, wearing only my clamps.” I pinched her other nipple. “Or maybe I’ll use clamps with bells and then fuck you, so every time I push inside your pussy, they ring. Would you like that?”

“Yes, Master. Yes to both.”

I loved playing with her breasts. I wished I had my crop with me. It would be fun to flick the tip of the crop against her nipples. But, unfortunately, I hadn’t brought my toy bag with me for the weekend and all my implements were back in New York. I smiled. Good thing I knew how to improvise.

Instead I flicked her nipples with my fingers. It wasn’t expected and she gasped. Feeling slightly evil, I held one breast and flicked the nipple again and again.